boolit hardness

[tuckerdog]

when cartridge firearms first came on the seen it was all pb boolits, when smokeless came on the seen it was still pb boolits. then came the magnum craze and everyone had to have the latest and greatest and fastest and pressures started to climb. casting your own started to be a pain in the butt and most people got away from it, it was easier to go to the store and buy, nobody had the time or the inclination to do for themselves.

Then casting started to make inroads and commercially cast bulk boolits were very cheap but, the sizing issue started to rear its ugly head and cast was deemed by many to be a sure way to mess up a good bbl.

In my experience pb will work until pressures begin to reach a given level, this is highly dependent on each individual firearm and the type and quality of rifling. velocity is a rough way of guesstimating pressure. after a ceatian point the lead starts to behave like taffey and pressure begins to work its way around the base of the boolit causing leading much the same way as an undersized boolit.

We can negate this effect somewhat by adding tin and antimony but only to a certian point then copper or paperpatching comes into play but too hard of a boolit is almost as bad as too soft I'm not sure as to why but with light loads,. super hard boolits have leaded everything I've tried to shoot them it regardless of sizing.

I have been using 75%pb with 25%ww and a touch of tin added to help fillout for a long time and have had good results and minimal leading for a goodly while. I dont worry about bhn or anything but finding the most accurate load in a givin firearm with a given boolit. The mag bug bit me for a while but I decided that it was like having to have the fastest compound bow, once you can shoot thru a moose why do you need anything more? It only makes shooting accurately harder and you cant killem any deader. the paper target or errant tin can dosent care how fast the boolit is going.

Bottom line shoot properly sized boolits, use a good quality lube, and save a little money by using a reasonable alloy, and most of all use what works for you.

If we stop and smell the roses it makes the world a much sweeter place to be.

The preceeding is purely my opinion be safe and teach you kids to survive without walmart and the internet!!!

[captaint]

tucker - about your opinion - you are correct. I do pretty much the same thing. And it works for me just like yours works for you. Let's not complicate matters....enjoy Mike

[44man]

Yeah, I generally use just hard enough to halt skid at the boolit base with my PB.
But once in a while I will add a little antimony and tin to WW metal because I can shoot much tighter groups. I have never had a problem with leading with my own but some store bought bulk boolits have leaded my bores.
I don't do it often because it is a pain in the butt and plain WW's do what I want.
Cast Precision, BB and Double Tap have excellent boolits.
I don't shoot light loads. My friends bring over all kinds of little guns so I get my fill that way! [smilie=w: They really are just 25 yard guns!
I have never, ever found a need to shoot large revolvers that close. My normal fun shooting starts at 100.

[Larry Gibson]

Oh here I go again:groner:

Tuckerdog is essentially correct only as far as it goes. If one is just developing a cast bullet load for the rifle he has (assumed because he mentions PP'd bullets) or a handgun then he is essentially correct except that with handguns cast bullet of very reasonable alloys, even pretty soft ones wth GC'd bullets can be driven to "magnum" velocities and pressures with excellent accuracy and no leading. The same applies to numerous rifle cartridges; soft alloyed cast bullets can be driven to factory level pressures and velocities with excellent accuracy and no leading.

If wanting a cast bullet at HV then the other thing that can be done with many CF rifle cartridges is to reduce the rate if twist (rebarreling) and using a correctly designed cast bullet. I shoot the 311466 to 2600+ fps with excellent 1.5 moa of less (talking 10 shot groups or shooting 50 rounds w/o cleaning and maintaining that accuracy) by using a 14" twist longer barrel (Palma). I use a soft unhardened 18 BHN alloy and the pressures are at/over 40,000 psi.

Also, the generalized statement of velocity is a rough way of guesstimating pressure is a dangerous assumption. It can only be generally done when comparing known pressure/velocity data of the same powder, bullet, firearm type and barrel length. Even then there can be a pretty large +/- in velocity variation. Velocity alone is a very poor indicator of pressure in and of itself.

I d agree that too many get too wrapped around the technical aspects we discuss and fail to enjoy our hobby or to "smell the roses".

Larry Gibson